All the Details You Need

➡️ Join us for this inaugural For the Love…! event, the start of what will be a series of down-to-earth gatherings and discussions focused on things that bother us about our current lives together in community... and how we'd like to see them change for the better. We're making a new world, here — together.

➡️ This first event is celebrating Black Philanthropy Month — which is a global celebration observed every August to recognize, amplify, and invest in Black-led giving, funding equity, and community change. Founded in 2011 by Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland, the movement highlights financial, time, and talent contributions across the African diaspora… and is now the largest global movement for Black philanthropy.

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➡️ Wednesday, August 26th | 6:30-8:30 PM @ Black Garnet Books

➡️ Our delicious dinner will be from Afro Deli.

➡️ We will have a conversation featuring insights and stories from our special guests Mallory Mitchell and Jonathan C.W. Jones... and explore how we can all embrace Black philanthropy more.

➡️ More re: Mallory: Rapidly emerging as a sought-after keynote speaker, Mallory Mitchell is redefining fundraising leadership with her radically warm, community-centric approach. As the co-founder of Aligned Strategy Group, she's sparked transformational change nationwide by challenging the rules that hold fundraisers back. With experience spanning major gifts to development director roles, Mallory creates light bulb moments that shift cultures toward abundance and equity. Her commitment to advancing racial equity earned her the 2021 National Philanthropy Day Award from AFP Minnesota. Featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and a former University of Minnesota adjunct professor, Mallory provides practical wisdom to help nonprofit leaders claim their confidence in fundraising.

➡️ More re: Jonathan: A seasoned community leader, Jonathan C.W. Jones is a Minnesota-based champion of representation, mentoring, and support in education for communities of color. He is the founder and Executive Director of the UpLiFT Movement, CEO of Ideation4, and an educator and administrator who has served in multiple schools in the Twin Cities area. While he earned his M.Ed. in Special Education and Teaching from Penn State University, and a K-12 Principal Administrative Licensure and Certificate in Educational Leadership and Administration from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, he is an especially proud alum of Xavier University of Louisiana, an HBCU based in New Orleans.

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➡️ Our Agenda: While eating your delicious dinner in this lovely setting, you’ll have a chance to hear stories and insights from Mallory and Jonathan, about their experiences in the world of philanthropy… and you’ll also have a chance to join the discussion! In small and larger group discussion, we’ll unpack ways that Black philanthropy can become something we all embrace more.

➡️ Who This Is For: This gathering is for anyone who cares about working for better communities, in community — which is hopefully everyone reading this! We especially welcome people who are actively participating in the “industry” of the modern-day system of philanthropy (from fundraisers, to individual and family donors, to business-based community relations folks, to foundation founders or staffers or board members, to nonprofit board members, to nonprofit staffers, etc.). We want YOU to come… but if you can’t for whatever reason, please share this opportunity with folks who you think should be there! Thank you! 🙏🏻

Get your ticket(s) here!

In addition to essential support from Mission Growth Partners, this event is made possible by our sponsoring partner, Aspasia Collaborative.

MANY THANKS to the founder of Aspasia, Angela Schlesinger, for her enthusiastic support of this gathering.

Angela and Aspasia should be your first call when you need help reimagining your nonprofit board — especially if that process is related to your fundraising needs, which she also deeply understands!

Read on to find out more….

For You: Today’s Main Course

There were people who said that we were living in a “post-racial” society, as soon as Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

And yet…

➡️ Just this week, nearly twenty years later, a racist comment at a widely publicized event at the White House, denigrating his wife’s appearance (essentially questioning her feminine beauty), ricocheted around the world. And that is on the heels of the current President of the United States amplifying a social media post, a few weeks back, comparing both Obama and his wife to apes. And those two instances are just two of many instances of intense racism against them over the years.

There are people who say that “the police keep us safe.”

And yet…

➡️ Just this week, a one-year-old Black baby was shot dead by police, for no reason other than they thought they were responding to a theft of diapers (really?! really. this is your response for that?!) and cavalierly shot into the car his mother was driving away from a store. And I have completely lost count of the senseless police killings of Black folks right here in my own community — we just have so many, including the renowned George Floyd — and that is just one city in one state. And so few folks seem to know that our current-day policing is actually a hold-over from the model of slave patrols hunting down Black people in our country.

There are so many people who think that nonprofits and philanthropy are beyond reproach, “doing good,” and helping people.

And yet…

➡️ Though there is help happening through these efforts, there is quite a lot of harm too, not the least of which is a good deal of anti-Blackness. There is the persistent problem of the “pet to threat” continuum, experienced especially by Black women. Or there’s this report from Candid that shows 1) Black CEOs tend to lead smaller organizations with limited financial resources; 2) White-led nonprofits control 30 times more sector-wide revenue than Black-led nonprofits; and more. Or there’s the stories you will hear, when you’re in relationship with Black professionals, as I am: confounding leadership decisions that marginalize them; plausibly deniable racist comments from colleagues or donors or board members; way more struggle than should be necessary to secure adequate funding for Black-led efforts; etc.

Y’all, the anti-Blackness is deep here.

And we need to address it.

Or we have to admit that we’re just cosplaying the work we say we’re doing, of building a better world together.

Today is Juneteenth — now a national holiday in this country, thanks to the advocacy of many people, but especially of Opal Lee, who finally convinced President Joe Biden to sign the federal holiday into law five years ago.

This day doesn’t just celebrate freedom in general.

More to the point, it celebrates the overwhelming and uplifting relief and jubilation felt by a people who had been inescapably trapped in chattel slavery for generations…

… and who were suddenly free of those heavy, seemingly never-ending, violent, and oppressive chains.

Just feel into that for a moment.

And then, feel into how demoralizing and heavy it is… to realize that the freedom has only ever been partial… and that there are still many shades of oppression coloring the face of the country they write their life stories within, even (and especially) in the places that like to pretend they’re enlightened and “woke.”

So.

In honor of Juneteenth this year, I’m announcing the first event of a new event series I’ll be experimenting with in the months to come:

• Thursday, July 30th

• 6:30-8:30PM

• Black Garnet Books | St. Paul, Minnesota

• Check the link out for the info and to get your ticket. 👆🏻And hurry, there aren’t many tickets available!

For the Love…! is both a new event series and a new Section of this publication — where you can stay in the loop with all of the happenings.

For the Love…! will both examine problems we’re currently experiencing, in our collective lives together... and also lean into the magic and wisdom of community, to start talking about solutions for these problems.

“For the love!” is a phrase many of us shout when we’re frustrated with something, yes? I know I sure do!

At the same time, “for the love” can be a phrase guiding us, as we live our lives — a value system that puts love at the center of everything we do.

We will use both meanings in these gatherings, as we come together and really collaborate to address the issues constructively.

I really can hardly imagine anything better than this.

Community.

Good food.

Meaningful discussion.

Working toward a better world.

Together.

I hope you’re excited about this too.

And I hope that, if you’re local, you’ll join us.

Go ahead and get your ticket today!

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Conversation: Your Real Real

I really want to know your more detailed and nuanced thoughts, too. Let’s start a conversation on this topic. Visit the comments section!

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Practice: Make It Yours

If you want to get serious about healing anti-Blackness in nonprofits and philanthropy, it’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Even more, it’s time to get comfortable with honesty.

We aren’t often honest, in our dominant culture. We blithely pretend things are true that are not. Or we ignore things that are true, hoping they’ll go away. Or we impose our own reality on what’s true, strong-arming it, willing it to be different than it is.

We can’t keep doing this, if we want to see change.

We must get comfortable with honesty — even when it hurts, even when it makes us uncomfortable, even if we’d rather do anything else in the moment.

So.

What’s something you’ve been dishonest about — with yourself, with others?

How can you change that?

Notice how you feel, when you try this.

Can you sit with the discomfort?

Can you simply be present to it?

If yes, how does that change you?

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Closing Thought: Something to Sit With

You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were Black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever.

You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being.

You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.

— James Baldwin